Notes

General Notes:


- Thanks go to everyone who worked on and made available the sources used in this matrix. Obviously, this project would have been impossible without their prior efforts.


- For my money, 07/08/78 is a top-ten all-time show, perhaps even a top-five. Whereas a show like Cornell '77 showcases the Dead at a peak of cool, polished professionalism (one they wouldn't approach again until Fall '89-Spring '90), the final show of their Summer '78 tour reveals a group who has traded in cool polish for raw power. They stomp and tear and growl their way through a setlist that is quietly but pleasantly unusual, down to the triple encore, which ends with a rare version of "Werewolves of London."

The night kicks off with a breakneck "Bertha." The high energy established in the opener is kept up throughout the first set and into the second, which starts with a shimmering "Samson & Delilah." But the show catapults to the next level with Bobby's enigmatic pronouncement, "I'm moving to Australia." What follows is an extraordinary song-cycle that wends from a blistering "Estimated Prophet > Other One > Eyes of the World," through a novel early "Drums/Space," to a tour-de-force combination of "Wharf Rat > Franklin's Tower > Sugar Magnolia."

Then, as though wanting to launch into a whole new set, the boys proceed to trot out a "Terrapin Station" encore. It may not be the best "Terrapin" they ever played, but even so, it's quite an encore! And as though it weren't enough, they segue (literally without missing a beat) from "Terrapin" into "One More Saturday Night." Despite having already played a complete show (and then some!), they stay on for a thumping, guttural "Werewolves of London." They were obviously enjoying themselves and were in no hurry to leave the stage.

Truly, 07/08/78 is an epic night by any measure.

- Pre-show hilarity. "The bass isn't working because Phil Lesh is so stoned..." "Were you yelling 'China Cat' all last night? Somebody was. That was you! I heard you last night, yelling 'China Cat.' Down there."

Source Notes:

- The AUD copy of the second set is missing several chunks of music, as detailed in the source info. The AUD source was patched with the SBD; naturally, I cut those patches. The missing chunks are: (1) the first 20 seconds of "Ship of Fools," (2) 10 seconds of "Estimated Prophet," (3) 26 seconds of "Drums," and (4) 12 seconds of "Franklin's Tower."

- The SBD copy is missing about 49 seconds at the end of "Eyes."

- I only retained the empty space between songs that appears on the AUD copy.

Technical Notes:

- The sources were remastered and mixed in Logic Pro 9. Clean-up (mostly of clicks and pops in the AUD) was done using iZotope RX 3 Advanced. The sets were split in WaveLab LE 7. SBE's were fixed using Trader's Little Helper. Conversions to and from .flac, .shn, and .wav were done using dbPowerAmp.

- I speed- and pitch-corrected the AUD source using the iZotope Radius algorithm. Fine-tune syncing was done in Logic Pro 9.

- I ran the AUD source through iZotope RX's Declip function subsequent to speed-correcting it.

- The SBD source is kind of 'hot,' especially the second set. I considered trying to cool it down in iZotope RX (with Declip), but in the end I decided that anything I might do to that end would result in a net loss of sound quality. So the 'hotness' remains.


Roger Eichorn
www.facebook.com/freshdeadlegs/
September 30, 2013